Articles
Discussing Caste, Independence, and the Nation: Avatars and Omissions of the Samurai in Colonial South Asia
Abstract
This article examines the ways in which Indian intellectuals, reformers, and nationalists conceptualized and articulated their ideas about one key Japanese concept: the samurai. This is set within the context of India’s engagement with Japan in the early decades of the twentieth century. The article begins with a brief overview of the relevant literature, after which it presents two case studies in which Indians made use of the term “samurai.” The contexts under consideration are as follows: first, the issue of caste and the abolition of untouchability from the late 1900s to the early 1920s; and second, the articulation of ideas to unite and unify the Indian nation with the objective of liberating the country from colonial rule in the 1920s and early 1930s. In the first three decades of the twentieth century, Indian reformers and nationalists, I argue, repeatedly invoked the positive effects of the samurai’s renunciation of privilege and status on the construction of equality in Japan. They also highlighted the samurai’s willingness to sacrifice their privileges for the sake of the nation as a point of reference for ensuring national solidarity and political progress with simultaneous social reform. The conclusion of the article provides a perspective on subsequent developments in the use—or rather the non-use—of the term “samurai” in the late 1930s and 1940s.